So 2 people who got their ps4s today via Taco Bell have reported that their machines are already bricked. One guy is from GAF, another is live streaming attempts to fix it on twitch (although both are getting return boxes from Sony).

This is why we do console launches, right? The excitement! The luck of the draw!

So 2 people who got their ps4s today via Taco Bell have reported that their machines are already bricked. One guy is from GAF, another is live streaming attempts to fix it on twitch (although both are getting return boxes from Sony).

This is why we do console launches, right? The excitement! The luck of the draw!

Man that sucks. Bricked from update? I'd be so pissed.

This stuff happens though. Think of it this way: Taco Bell gave away a little over 4000 consoles. 2 reported cases of broken consoles. Even if we make that 20, that's half a percent. Way below a typical failure rate for new technology. Yes, some people's consoles will be bricked -- it happened to Vitas, Wii Us, 3DSs, it happens to computers, TVs, sound systems. Any company worth their salt will replace these immediately. It sucks, yes, but it happens. If a 1/4th of those units were broken, I'd say there's reason to be concerned. But technology is fallible, at least until it is developed by our future robot overlords.

So 2 people who got their ps4s today via Taco Bell have reported that their machines are already bricked. One guy is from GAF, another is live streaming attempts to fix it on twitch (although both are getting return boxes from Sony).

This is why we do console launches, right? The excitement! The luck of the draw!

Man that sucks. Bricked from update? I'd be so pissed.

This stuff happens though. Think of it this way: Taco Bell gave away a little over 4000 consoles. 2 reported cases of broken consoles. Even if we make that 20, that's half a percent. Way below a typical failure rate for new technology. Yes, some people's consoles will be bricked -- it happened to Vitas, Wii Us, 3DSs, it happens to computers, TVs, sound systems. Any company worth their salt will replace these immediately. It sucks, yes, but it happens. If a 1/4th of those units were broken, I'd say there's reason to be concerned. But technology is fallible, at least until it is developed by our future robot overlords.

That link Jimmy gave doesn't seem to be the update to me. It seems to be the full install if you are installing a new drive and need to get the OS installed. Maybe it will work like the update, but you are downloading more than you need to.

The 307MB one is the update that you could pull online automatically from the PS4. The 859MB one is the latest full install and is (as noted) for use if you are replacing or rebuilding the hard drive. It notes that "All users and all data will be deleted" when you use it.

So 2 people who got their ps4s today via Taco Bell have reported that their machines are already bricked. One guy is from GAF, another is live streaming attempts to fix it on twitch (although both are getting return boxes from Sony).

This is why we do console launches, right? The excitement! The luck of the draw!

Man that sucks. Bricked from update? I'd be so pissed.

This stuff happens though. Think of it this way: Taco Bell gave away a little over 4000 consoles. 2 reported cases of broken consoles. Even if we make that 20, that's half a percent. Way below a typical failure rate for new technology. Yes, some people's consoles will be bricked -- it happened to Vitas, Wii Us, 3DSs, it happens to computers, TVs, sound systems. Any company worth their salt will replace these immediately. It sucks, yes, but it happens. If a 1/4th of those units were broken, I'd say there's reason to be concerned. But technology is fallible, at least until it is developed by our future robot overlords.

Oh I thought they only gave out 5

Nope, they gave away one every 15 minutes. Checked the contest info, it was somewhere in between 4000-5000.

So as a reviewer of COD Ghosts who went to the review event and played on both One and PS4, I'd like to note one thing- this day one patch is for the retail version of the game- the physical disk. I did not see a physical disk in the unit I was playing on and it is entirely possible that the version I played on was a version post-gold master. I'm not trying to defend anyone, just pointing out that the assumptions being made about what reviewers saw up to this point are based off of incomplete data. I'd say it's very likely that what we saw included the patch for the commercial disk.

That said, I had no real way to test actual resolution or framerate on any of the platforms. All I have is the anecdotal evidence I saw when I looked at them individually- the PS4 version looked a little better to me. I should also note that this was when the situation was first coming to light.

Keep in mind that this piece of news broke when NeoGAFers started analyzing YouTube videos of the game in action (recorded by game sites at one of these events) and discovered that both versions of the game contained the exact same aliasing artifacts. You can't count pixels in a YouTube video, but the aliasing would be preserved even with heavy compression. I don't know which event this happened at, but it was clearly an issue there.

The reality is that Sony has done a pretty good job here. We'll get to the metrics in a moment, but first impressions are certainly reassuring. On start-up, the hardware is exceptionally quiet, but as you progress into gameplay, volume and heat does start to increase. PS4 also draws a fair amount of juice too - 80W at idle on the front-end menus (the "PlayStation Dynamic Menu" to give it its proper name), 95W based on in-game video playback, and around 110-120W during gameplay - that's about 10-20W more than the first release of the "Slim" PlayStation 3. Curiously though, bringing up the menu system while in-game sees another leap in power draw - up to the maximum of 140W.

Keep in mind that "idle" isn't the same as "standby", and represents doing nothing in the menus.

Appears to be a heating warning. So if you see a red line of death on your PS4, make sure it's getting plenty of ventilation.

Yeah this is meaningless and nothing to worry about. The few PS4s that have died with a flashing blue light and other symptoms (nothing really consistent) are more worrying. Hopefully isolated and not pervasive. The fact that the few early folks with issues seem to be from a myriad of different root causes gives hope that it's not a Red Ring situation.

Appears to be a heating warning. So if you see a red line of death on your PS4, make sure it's getting plenty of ventilation.

Yeah this is meaningless and nothing to worry about. The few PS4s that have died with a flashing blue light and other symptoms (nothing really consistent) are more worrying. Hopefully isolated and not pervasive. The fact that the few early folks with issues seem to be from a myriad of different root causes gives hope that it's not a Red Ring situation.

yeah, if this is a red light of death, we'll see the birth of a new meme.

My Amazon pre-order (placed June 10th) status is now 'preparing for shipment'. My order for three games (Knack, Killzone, Assassin's Creed) is coming today.

Tomorrow's gonna be a perfect day!

What's not going to be so cool is the time I'll have to spend rewiring and reconfiguring my entertainment center to fit the thing. My biggest problem is having enough electrical plugs to fit everything. The negative of being a techno-boy is having too many gadgets. Gah!

I'm now pretty firmly settled into buying the PS4 first, and the Xbone when it gets its first price drop or my willpower breaks. Titanfall was the biggest thing pulling me over to the Xbone side, and that just doesn't seem like enough to outweigh all the other advantages the PS4 has coming out the gate, especially since I can still play Titanfall on the 360 or PC.

Despite it still being the right move to cancel my PS4 preorder while my bank account recovers from homebuying, I find myself wishing I kept the order. I imagine I will have a hard time holding myself back if I happen to come across a PS4 on a shelf in the wild. I really really should at least wait and see if Santa pulls off a big PS4 surprise for me, though.

I'm now pretty firmly settled into buying the PS4 first, and the Xbone when it gets its first price drop or my willpower breaks. Titanfall was the biggest thing pulling me over to the Xbone side, and that just doesn't seem like enough to outweigh all the other advantages the PS4 has coming out the gate, especially since I can still play Titanfall on the 360 or PC.

Despite it still being the right move to cancel my PS4 preorder while my bank account recovers from homebuying, I find myself wishing I kept the order. I imagine I will have a hard time holding myself back if I happen to come across a PS4 on a shelf in the wild. I really really should at least wait and see if Santa pulls off a big PS4 surprise for me, though.

If I found myself having to choose now between the two, I have drifted more towards interest in the Xbone. The PS4 seems to be more of a turbo charged PS3 (which is a good thing -- don't get me wrong), but I think between games there will be far more to play with and toy around with on the Xbone. Voice commands, integration with the television, checking out what friends are watching and doing, etc. Fitness is something i definitely want need to try out.

My PS4 will be used to play Killzone, Madden, and NBA2k. Killzone being the only exclusive I'm grabbing for the PS4 and I'd imagine I'll be done with it fairly quickly, so having the interface and features to play around with on the Bone would be cool if I only could get one at this time.

Headset is a stretch to call that thing. It's just an earbud with an inline mic. The quality is poor, but usable, for both play and recording. You will want to upgrade to a better headset ASAP if you plan to play online with friends. Thankfully, it seems to be a standard headset plug, so you can even use cheap telemarketer/secretary headsets.

Anothing thing I like about this new gen of consoles is the apps for tablets and phones. It solves the problem of how do you know if distant friends or acquaintances are online and playing. How do they invite you to play while you're offline? Now, if you do, you should get notifications.

Headset is a stretch to call that thing. It's just an earbud with an inline mic. The quality is poor, but usable, for both play and recording. You will want to upgrade to a better headset ASAP if you plan to play online with friends. Thankfully, it seems to be a standard headset plug, so you can even use cheap telemarketer/secretary headsets.

Anothing thing I like about this new gen of consoles is the apps for tablets and phones. It solves the problem of how do you know if distant friends or acquaintances are online and playing. How do they invite you to play while you're offline? Now, if you do, you should get notifications.

I do hope it's standard. I have a good headset for my PC and I can just reach over and switch it from PC to PS4 if it works like that.